Responsive Web Design
Best User Experience on Mobile Devices
Since its inception around 2010, what is now known as Responsive Web Design (RWD), has become an industry standard. Its widespread adoption is proof that it offers the best user experience on mobile devices as well as providing website administrators the efficiency of managing one expression of a website that can adapt to any viewing device.
What Is Responsive Design?
This design approach is a solution to providing an optimal viewing experience across a wide range of devices (from desktop computer monitors to mobile phones). The idea behind RWD is to provide a simple and elegant answer to the ever-growing proliferation of various screen sizes. And since mobile web traffic has eclipsed non-mobile web traffic in the last few years, Responsive Web Design is now the industry standard that website viewers expect and which website design and development firms commonly employ.
How Does Responsive Design Work?
A responsively designed website adapts the layout to the viewing environment by using fluid, proportion-based grids, flexible images, and CSS3 media queries. The media queries essentially allow the website to query the user’s device to find out that the size of that device’s viewing area. The elements of the website are built using a flexible grid which allows its presentation to adapt as needed. This most often involves the elimination of some elements for the mobile view as well as a stacking of the elements that remain. Images are also automatically scaled for optimal viewing.
Why Does Responsive Design Matter?
This web design strategy has gained widespread adoption because of the enhancements to the content and navigation with a minimum of resizing, panning, and scrolling on mobile devices. And given the rapid expansion of mobile web viewing, Google now gives preference to websites that are mobile optimized. This has had a significant impact in the realm of search, particularly Search Engine Optimization. Websites that are not built using Responsive Web Design are at a significant disadvantage in how major search engines index and rank them.
Responsive Design Best Practices
- Mobile menus are oriented from the left side.
- Content is not dependent on rollover or hover states
- Copy is not located in JPEGs, so that it is free to be edited via the CMS
- Clicks are also touch points
"Our team really enjoyed working with Kaulig Media... Now, we have a top-notch website that is beautiful, functional, and easy to navigate. Thank you, Kaulig Media"Lauren Gajdek Christian Healthcare Ministries, Communications Director